The goal of our Society for Conservation Biology (SCB) Europe Section Blog is to share stories and relevant information about activities going on within our section and more broadly in the conservation community. Stories and articles shared on our blog should not be taken as an official position or statement of SCB or SCB Europe Section. Thank you for reading!

Wednesday, 25 September 2013

Achieving the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Goals for Plant Conservation

"Identifying which areas capture how many species is the first question
in conservation planning. The Convention on Biological
Diversity (CBD) aspires to formal protection of
at least 17% of the terrestrial world and, through the Global Strategy
for
Plant Conservation, 60% of plant species. Are
these targets of protecting area and species compatible? We show that
67% of
plant species live entirely within regions that
comprise 17% of the land surface. Moreover, these regions include most
terrestrial
vertebrates with small geographical ranges.
However, the connections between the CBD targets of protecting area and
species
are complex. Achieving both targets will be
difficult because regions with the most plant species have only slightly
more
land protected than do those with fewer."